Monday, May 16, 2005

Backwards Thinkers

Why? Because the abstinence movement needs HPV out there to help justify its war. HPV, you see, isn’t blocked by latex, which means that as long as it’s around, chastity pushers can argue that condoms are essentially worthless. Abstinence education literature puts more emphasis on HPV than on just about any other STD — it’s the bug that supposedly gives the lie to the safe-sex approach of comprehensive sex education. It’s not uncommon to hear claims — lies, that is — that HPV kills more people than HIV/AIDS.

But now the truth is out. The abstinence advocates have no interest in preventing death. They would rather use it to serve as a warning against sex. They don’t put it quite that way, of course, but what they do say is hardly less horrifying. “Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex,” said Bridget Maher, a policy analyst at the Family Research Council. Some even oppose the vaccine for young people who are already having sex. “Would this vaccine not enable or encourage them to continue to be sexually active?” asked Scott Phelps of the Abstinence and Marriage Education Partnership. “We’re all for preventing cancer,” he said, employing a phrase sane people seldom follow with the word but, “but is this really the way to do it?”

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Scoop when you are done...

Poor Kwame...

...but he needs a fresh start. Hopefully, somewhere out west where we only see him a few times a year. If we get to play Miami, he certainly would be helpful to team up with Haywood, Ruffin, and Etan Thomas to muscle Shaq, squeeze a few fouls out of him.

But o well. I did some pretty embarrasing thick-headed stuff before. Hopefully, not this bad.